- Violation: Settler seize and plant Palestinian owned land with various types of trees. .
- Location: Al-Ghuzlan area – Tuqu ‘town / Bethlehem Governorate.
- Date: 11/4/2020.
- Perpetrators: settlers from the colony of “Tekoa”.
- Affected people: Al-Arouj family.
Violation details:
On Sunday, November 1, 2020, settlers from the colony of “Tekoa” seized 88 dunums of Palestinian owned land located in the area of Al Ghuzlan, Tuqu ‘town, east of Bethlehem. The target land belongs to the Palestinian family of Al-Arouj. On the same day, the settlers planted it with various species of trees.
Citizen Hassan Suleiman Al-Arouj, one of the landowners, told the Land Research Center field researcher the following:
” We continuously suffer from the colonists ’attacks, and we own a plot of land of 88 dunums. Whenever we try to tend it, sellers come and prevent us from doing so, and, then, the Israeli army arrives at the scene to kick us out. We’ve hired a lawyer to follow up the case and we presented three complaints against the colonists attacks, the last of which was in February, 2020, when they planted it with pine trees and other species”.
It is worth noting that the colonists of the “Tekoa” colony which was established on the lands of the south eastern slopes of the Bethlehem governorate, have, since 2011, attacked that agricultural land by cultivating it with vineyards, olive trees and forest trees, although the Al-Arouj family owns all the related land ownership document that they inherited from their ancestors which they submitted to support their repeated complaints against the colonialists.
Photo 1-3: Pictures of lands that have been cultivated
Such an aggression was mentioned by the writer Ilan Pappe as a myth in his book “Ten Myths about Israel”, as the colonists use religious arguments for their attacks on the land that belongs to the Palestinians, and these are among the methods which have been in use since the British occupation to establish a national home for the Jews, and the colonialists still use the same the methods and the same way to win the support of the world with incorrect arguments.
Despite the assertion by the representatives of states in the UN Security Council held on November 20, 2019 that settlement activities are illegal according to international law, the colonialists continue their attacks, and they continue to expand their colonies and establish colonial outposts.
A glimpse on Tuqu ‘ town (1):
The town of Tuqu ‘is located 5 km to the south east of Bethlehem . Its population is 8767 according to the latest census of 2017. The total area of the village is 199,634 dunums, of which 1627 dunums are built up area.
- -About 1570 dunums of the Town’s land have been confiscated for the erection of Jewish colonies as followed:
- – 1,033 dunums were confiscated for “Tekoa” colony, established in 1977, and inhabited now by 1,116 settlers;
- -93 dunums for “Mashuki Dragot” settlement, which was established in 1991;
- – 345 dunums for “Nokdim” colony, which was established in 1982, and nowadays inhabited by 646.
- – 99 dunums for the bypass roads No. 356/3157/3670.
The lands of the village are classified according to the Oslo Agreement as followed:
- Area B (2%) comprising 3,954 donums;
- Area C (98%) comprising 195,680 dunums of which 46,841 dunums are a nature reserve.
[1] Source: Geographic Information Systems Unit – Land Research Center.
